Celeste
I decided quickly that Joshua was a delight.
He made me laugh. He let me drag him through half a dozen stalls. He bought me a ribbon for my hair from a vendor who refused his coin and then refused mine. He then refused Joshua's again when he tried a second time, and in the end the vendor won the argument. Joshua grumbled something about people and put the ribbon in my hair himself.
His fingers were careful at the nape of my neck. Warmer than I expected. Calloused the way a swordsman's are. The touch was so brief I did not have time to feel it as anything but polite.
My wolf noticed anyway.
She did not move. She did not stir. She listened the way she had listened at the castle gate. As if the man braiding a ribbon into my hair were producing a sound she could almost hear and co
